City Council notes: apologies for the hold-up

I did not liveblog the Tuesday (3/3) City Council meeting, but I did take some notes on the budget. Tuesday's talk around the budget was largely a reaction to the presentation, just preceding the meeting, by the Massachusetts Taxpayers' Foundation, which then was repeated for the public at 7pm at South Community High.

The big news this week from the City Manager was the 75/25 split being taken by non-union employees. The Manager is determined on this one, and the numbers are stark:

• on the City side, a 75/25 split would save the City $2.35 million
• on the School side, the same split would save the City $3.4 million

On average, an employee would pay around $12 more a week with that change.

This is one where public opinion could really make a difference. There was a line tossed in last week's Clive McFarlane column by Dr. Mills referencing the teachers' union--"they eat their young." Speaking as a former MTA member, that isn't always true. But the numbers this year are going to come down, in many cases, to everyone paying $12 more a week for health insurance or laying off the newest of every profession. We already saw that happen with the police. Teachers are certainly going to have this happen next if the health insurance becomes a deal breaker.

The stark news from the presentation by the Taxpayers Association was that the Governor's budget appears to have been too rosy. According to the Manager, it looks like the Governor's budget has $1 billion that doesn't exist anymore. Thus his cuts in local aid don't go deep enough.

The Manager has intentionally not included the Emergency Relief bill in his calculations of the FY10 city budget, as we can't count on that money, as the bill hasn't passed yet. This led to Councilor Clancy asking for the Council to send a letter (per our delegation's request) to the Legislature, asking for them to pass the bill. The Mayor asked that the three portions of Emergeny Relief be dealt with separately (she doesn't support a meals tax). Councilor Eddy then held the item under privilege. That one won't move until next week. If you're wonder what the ER bill would do, it has three parts:

• "closing the telecom loophole" which would charge telephone companies taxes (in essence). For Worcester, this would mean an estimated $361,969
• a 1 cent meals tax, for Worcester would mean an estimated $2,780,336
• a 1 cent hotel/motel tax, for Worcester would mean an estimated $233,579

Councilor Petty gently urged the School Department to get moving on giving the city some numbers: "the more we know the better." He pointed out that the Council has been getting reports from the Manager "in depth." The only number anyone seems to have from the schools is the $18 million deficit given at last week's School Committee meeting.

Councilor Toomey asked the Manager what the given deficit is for the city if the city is level-funded, citing a school deparment number of $10 million on the school side. The Manager was clearly not thrilled about this question, saying that he thought the schools' number "may be oversimplified" but eventually gave a figure of between $9 and 11 million. This is what I cited below: given the same amount of income and no new budget items, there's automatically a deficit due to the increased cost of doing business from one year to the next.

Councilor Rosen repeated the line from the Taxpayers' Association: we should expect "thousands of teachers in Massachusetts to be laid off in the next few years."